According to a recent report released by the International Energy Agency, global carbon dioxide emissions from energy combustion and industrial processes will increase by 6% year-on-year to 36.3 billion tons in 2021. Global carbon dioxide emissions will increase by 6% in 2021, in sync with global economic growth of 5.9%.
From the perspective of the emission sources, in 2021, coal will account for more than 40% of the total increase in global carbon dioxide emissions, and the carbon dioxide emissions from the use of coal will reach an all-time high of 15.3 billion tons. CO2 from the use of oil amounted to 10.7 billion tonnes.
The largest increase in CO2 emissions in 2021 was in the power and heating sectors, mainly due to the increased use of all fossil fuels. The industry’s CO2 emissions were close to 14.6 billion tonnes, an increase of about 500 million tonnes from 2019 and an all-time high. Transportation is the only industry in the world where CO2 emissions are well below 2019 levels.
Renewables and nuclear energy will account for a higher share of global power generation than coal in 2021. The generation of electricity from renewables reached an all-time high of more than 8,000 terawatt hours, an increase of 500 terawatt hours over 2020. Wind and solar PV generation increased by 270 terawatt hours and 170 terawatt hours, respectively, while hydroelectric power generation fell by 15 terawatt hours due to drought.
In 2021, the increase in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will push greenhouse gas emissions in the overall energy sector to an all-time high. Total global greenhouse gas emissions will reach 40.8 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2021, of which carbon dioxide emissions from energy combustion and industrial processes account for nearly 89% of greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector; carbon dioxide emissions from combustion gases 0.7%. In addition to carbon dioxide, combustion-related methane emissions accounted for 10 per cent of the total and combustion-related nitrous oxide emissions accounted for 0.7 percent.
